Spanish civil war and revolution photo gallery, 1936-39

Photo gallery of anarchists and other workers who attempted a social revolution after the military uprising of the right-wing General Francisco Franco in July 1936. Thanks to anarchismus.at for supplying some of the pictures.

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Auld-bod

May 7 2013 10:30

I found this when reading a review of Peter Day’s book, ‘Franco’s Friends – How British Intelligence Helped Bring Franco to Power In Spain’, on the Guardian web site:

Quote:

‘If we ever have a fascist coup in Britain, it won't be run by poor white men trying to improve their sad lives by threatening people with dark skins, but by upper-class Christian gentlemen who talk as though they come straight out of a John Buchan novel. Peter Day's account of the rise of Franco is full of them. Without them, Spain might have remained a democracy after 1936.

Hugh Pollard, who hired the plane that took Franco from the Canaries to north Africa, was typical: an upper-class Roman Catholic, he knew he had the support of the princes of his church, for the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Hinsley – the leader of Britain's Catholics – said that the Spanish civil war was "in essence a contest between Christ and Antichrist".

Those who know something of British fascism in the 30s will recognise some of Pollard's friends and co-conspirators. Major General JFC ‘Boney’ Fuller makes a cameo appearance in Day's book, meeting Franco and greasing the wheels of business with him. This is the same ‘Boney’ Fuller who attached himself to Oswald Mosley, eventually leaving the British Union of Fascists, not from disagreement with its views, but from disillusion with Mosley's leadership qualities.’

Addenda:
Recently opened British security files have shown that the number of British volunteers to fight for the Republic was twice the number previously acknowledged be the authorities.

2) you're failing to ask yourself why people would want to shoot symbols of the church?

this is the core of it. all this did not come out of nowhere, and though it might be hard to document victimizations by the clergy themselves, it was this clergy who supported and preached as godly a social system of degradation. the opening (iirc) of preston's book has a good vignette of this, some caudillo type haranguing his workers with olympian contempt. later in the book we meet characters who murdered from the same motives. we all have our (divinely authorized) places!

also i detect a cheap rhetorical trick above: if "our" people do a bad thing, it's an exception; if "their" people do it, it's characteristic. so malyuta thinks s/he sees in our pictures people who "would" kill clergy, though we know almost nothing at all of the individuals in those pictures. but when catholics are shown as fascist sympathisers, it's not typical.

Marina Ginestà, aged 17, overlooking Barcelona from Hotel Colón. She worked as a translator for a Soviet journalist of Pravda during the Spanish Civil War. She was a member of Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas (Socialist Youth), the youth organization mainly directed by Partido Comunista de España (PCE, Communist Party of Spain). Despite her initial involvement she quickly grew disillusioned with the path that the Stalinists were taking. Marina remained a militant throughout the rest of the war and was drawn to other groups at that time such as the anti-Stalinist P.O.U.M (which George Orwell was a member of) and the Anarchist C.N.T. This photographs was taken by Juan Guzman (who was born Hans Gutmann in Germany before going to Spain where he photographed the International Brigades). Date of the photo: July 21, 1936.

i'm doing a phd on american anarchists who went over to fight in spain and i'm curious about the last photo, the one of the black cnt militiaman - anyone have any idea who this was/who took the photo? i saw in the comments thread about the black lincoln brigader but can't find anything for the cnt soldier - was he an american too?

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